Is This Goodbye to TikTok?
Some thoughts on the potential TikTok ban.
I’ve been getting more and more depressed about the possibility of a TikTok ban. This is a strange thing to say about a social media platform that I’m sure has negatively altered my brain chemistry. Still, I’m disappointed. In the past four years, I’ve formed a strong connection with that stupid app.
Maybe this is just the effects of social media on our lives. I’ve had some form of social media since I was in 7th grade. As much as I act like it’s silly to allow social media to affect you in real life, it does. We’ve all seen a hurtful Instagram post or been very excited about some tweet that came across our timeline. Even though I see people talk down about new forms of social media, they do inevitably follow trends in other places, like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. As much as I posit myself as an early adopter, I will admit that when I downloaded TikTok, it was begrudgingly.
I may be misremembering, but the first time that I downloaded TikTok was for a story. I was early in my time at Newsweek, and I volunteered to write a post about a viral video of someone dribbling a basketball. I’m not sure if the story was deleted or just never published, but I’m having trouble finding it now. I believe I set up an account in order to be able to reach out for comment. Even though I set up my account, I deleted the app shortly after finishing the story.
There were a few times in early 2020 where I needed to redownload the app for news stories. Eventually, I ended up scrolling, and the algorithm very quickly figured out how to be tailored perfectly for me. I started to get thirst traps and videos about emo music. Eventually the repetitive dances, lip-synced jokes, transition videos, and other posts really started to connect with me.
I was drawn to the musical artists who were starting to emerge from the app, like ppcocaine, or CORPSE. At that time, I made a playlist of the dumb TikTok songs that I’d grown to love, whether it was a new, rising artist, or some older, semi-obscure song that resurfaced on the app.
Eventually, I made my own first TikTok, set to Curtis Roach’s “Bored in the House,” which really truly feels like a peak COVID-era TikTok song. My first TikTok I ever made was actually flagged, because I made an overtly sexual joke that I didn’t realize violated community guidelines.
After spending some time scrolling through TikToks during that quarantine boredom, I started coming up with more original ideas. I made some characters, some sketches, told stories, and shared thoughts on music. I started to document every book that I read with a 60 second review.
The first video that I made that really took off was a character that I simply called “Country Club Dad.” The first few videos were silly character studies, but the first that really took off was a joke about the dad buying alcohol for his underage child. It quickly reached 250,000 views, but I think that a large part of that was because it sparked debate in the comment section. Tons of people were arguing over whether or not a parent could buy alcohol for their children at a restaurant or country club.
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This was also the first time that I really experienced that TikToks could perform well firsthand. As a comedian, we’re always fighting to get eyes on the work that we’re doing. I nearly immediately started trying to game the algorithm: posting daily, responding to comments, using viral sounds, etc. There’s always an effort to try to get eyes on you.
In August 2023, my best-performing video dropped. In the way that musicians talk about how they didn’t expect certain songs to become hits, my most-viewed video was definitely not the video that I spent the most time on.
It’s an 8 second clip that I shot in my kitchen in my old apartment. I didn’t bother trying to use a tripod to hold up my phone. I simply propped it on top of the coffee-maker. Inspired by the fact that I’d been listening to a lot of Zach Bryan and Jason Isbell, I filmed myself simply saying, “You either die an emo, or you live long enough to see yourself get into country music, and to that I say: yee-fucking-haw.” I then played a C on my acoustic guitar, and I quickly uploaded it.
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I’ve had some videos that I’ve spent a lot of time on. When I take a while and they don’t get any views, it’s disappointing. As someone who has put a lot of work into a public output (that still hasn’t reached a satisfying audience, size-wise), I’ll be honest to say that it can be exhausting. You’re always trying to create something and get noticed, but if it doesn’t get the views that you’d hope, it’s discouraging. In a world that demands content, sometimes it does feel like you’re simply checking a box. Did I make my TikTok today?
Shortly after posting, the video immediately started doing numbers. By the next day, I was into the hundreds of thousands of views. I continuously checked the app to see where the views were at, respond to comments, and boast about all the views that the clip was getting. I got a ton of recommendations for artists that toed the line between country and emo. Some people sharing how they grew up going to Warped Tour, but now they preferred cowboy boots over Vans. The video eventually started to plateau at about 850,000 views. I was a little disappointed that the video wasn’t going to hit a million, but I also know now that something can unexpectedly take off.
What I learned is that sometimes the most half-baked ideas are what resonate. I’m not going to explore the emo to country pipeline (I’ve already done that), but I think it goes to show that sometimes the things that we lazily fire off are our most authentic selves. I’ve remade that video a few times with slightly different spins, and I feel like maybe I was overthinking it. The video that I just shot off in my kitchen without thinking much of it became the most-viewed video that I ever made.
I’ve seen tons of fellow comics take off on TikTok or Instagram, because a video takes off in the algorithm. Even though I think that continuously checking my notifications on this stupid clip wasn’t the most healthy thing for myself, it was still a very exciting moment in my career.
If the TikTok ban goes through, I suppose I’ll need to start making more regular posts on Instagram Reels, but I’m not happy about the way that those videos are limited to 90 seconds.
The attacks on free speech and losing the platform where I have the biggest following are certainly major concerns for a potential TikTok ban, but that’s not the reason that I’m most disappointed. When I first got on TikTok, my now-fiancée followed me on shortly after. I asked her to help me game the algorithm by commenting on my posts, and she eventually got hooked also.
What disappoints me the most is that we regularly send TikToks to each other throughout the day, but neither of us watch the videos on our own. We always end our days in bed together, and we go back and watch the collection of videos that we sent each other throughout the day. Our videos are always a hodgepodge of things you’d send your partner: silly comedy videos, corny inspirational clips, restaurant recommendations, occasionally songs that we might like, the list goes on.
No matter what happens throughout my day I’ve always known that I could go and watch the short playlist of clips that we’ve curated for ourselves in our bed at the end of the night. It’s always a moment where we can laugh, relax, plan for the future, etc. I feel like Instagram would need to really up their video sharing in the messages to make it worthwhile. It’s one of the most calming moments for me, and I don’t foresee another app stepping into a place of ease like TikTok did.